Wilmington City Council unanimously passes an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2024 Operating Budget to avert an ambulance service crisis.
The budget amendment provides a temporary solution to the recent loss of city ambulance services.
St. Francis Hospital informed Wilmington at the end of 2023 it could no longer afford to provide no cost EMS services due to its own financial difficulties.
In response, city quickly issued two Requests for Proposal to find a new provider of EMS services. The only bidder was St. Francis in the amount of $3.5 million.
The amendment appropriates that amount from the budget reserves to St. Francis to continue to operate EMS services for the city until 2025.
It’s a temporary solution - one that Councilmember Chris Johnson says fulfills City Council’s duty to ensure Wilmington residents can be safely transported to a hospital without worrying about cost.
“I have no idea why, in this country, health and housing aren’t rights. But in council we at least need to provide our citizens with necessary services. No one should get a bill when they get taken to a hospital. It’s not right,” said Johnson.
Councilmember Yolanda McCoy, chair of the Public Safety Committee, says having well over 20,000 EMS runs in a city of just over 70,000 is a testament to the need.
City Council and the Purzycki Administration are working on a long term solution to the ambulance provider problem before the end of the year.
The current frontrunner is potentially setting up an EMS service operated by the Wilmington Fire Department.
“But this is a crisis. We have to figure it out. Because the cost to the Fire Department without state help will most likely be more than $4 million,” Johnson emphasized.
The city is actively negotiating with the state to help fund for a city-operated EMS service.
There will simultaneously be ongoing discussions with the Fire Department, led by Mccoy, to develop a solid plan in this short time frame.
